Americas

Four months after the coup against democratically elected president Mel Zelaya in Honduras, a combination of brutal repression and stalling tactics at the negotiating table have temporarily defused the resistance movement, but not decreased the people's opposition to the Micheletti regime. The level of consciousness has experienced a giant leap. It is necessary to group the most advanced activists of the movement into an organisation based on the ideas of Marxism.

The struggle of Mexican workers in defense of the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) has become one where at stake is not just this single union, but the position of the entire Mexican labor movement. It poses questions that go well beyond the realms of the Electricians’ Union. Here Ruben Rivera explains what is required to fight back and push the whole movement forward.

For Mexico, the world economic crisis has provoked a severe fall in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of -10.3% in the second quarter alone - the worst on record since 1981. 36,000 companies have gone bankrupt and 735,000 workers have lost their jobs. Massive government spending cuts are further aggravating the situation.

Michael Moore’s new film exposes capitalism for what it is: a system based on the ruthless exploitation of the many by the few, who shamelessly loot people’s lifelong savings, the public treasury, and kick millions out of their homes. By the end of the film, capitalism stands roundly condemned, however, Mike is less clear as to what he is actually for. The Workers International League thinks it is important to state what is: capitalism is the problem, and socialism is the solution.

According to a much publicized study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emanuel Saez, the income gap in the USA between the rich and poor is at its greatest level since 1917.

In the USA for decades millions have suffered illness and death in the richest country on earth for lack of basic medical care. This is a key issue for US workers and now that Obama has attempted the most modest of reforms, all the pent up contradictions are bursting to surface. We see the hysteria of the reactionary right against Obama’s so-called “socialism,” while millions of bewildered but increasingly frustrated Americans want a real solution now. here we provide the text of a flyer produced by the WIL in the USA.

Many US workers who voted for the Democrats because they hoped they would bring about reforms are already disappointed as the Democrats basically continue Bush’s policies, with a few cosmetic changes. Many workers would like there to be an alternative to the political parties of big business. That is why the unions need to break with the Democrats and build a mass labor party.

Yesterday morning police and army forces brutally attacked thousands of supporters of Honduran president Mel Zelaya and removed them violently from outside the Brazilian embassy in the capital Tegucigalpa. However, this brutal repression did not crush the will of the Honduran working people to resist against the coup. Following the lead given by the National Front of Resistance, there were mass demonstrations and barricades set up in all of the working class neighbourhoods of the capital and in the main cities throughout the country.

Yesterday morning it was confirmed that Mel Zelaya was in the capital Tegucigalpa. He made an appeal to the people to come out to protect him. The masses responded by the tens of thousands. The next few hours will be decisive. The balance of forces is on the side of the masses. They can deal the last blow to the coup regime and start the building of a new political regime based on the organisation of the masses.

Eighty days since the coup in Honduras there are no signs of the resistance being weakened. On the contrary it is growing and becoming more militant. The conditions exist for the coup regime to be overthrown, but this requires decisive action in the form of a total, all-out general strike.

This summer, the Marxists in Quebec launched their French paper, La Riposte. La Riposte is a paper that speaks for all sections of the working class in Quebec; the International Marxist Tendency is proud to announce the launch of this new website, www.marxiste.qc.ca, and we wish the comrades every success in their struggle for a socialist Quebec, a socialist Canada, and a socialist world. Read here a statement of La Riposte (Quebec) editorial board.

The coup in Honduras and the stepping up of a US military presence in Colombia are serious warnings to the masses of Latin America. On top of this the present world economic crisis is having an impact on the Venezuelan economy. All this is posing very sharply the need for a turn to a genuine revolutionary programme on the part of the Bolivarian movement.